Star No Star vs Surgery
by Kansas Kusuri
Summary: RikuRoxas, Axel & Roxas Roxas doesn't intend to be betrayed, but goes overboard to make sure he isn't. Luckily, Axel's there to clean clean him up.


This fic and the characters within belong to Tetsuya Nomura, or the crapper under my high school. There is nothing for me.

_"She was red and dripping with it, they had drenched her in the very secretness of blood...and her thought was colored a ghastly purple with her revulsion and her shame...she kept trying to get the blood off and thinking she'd never get the blood off"_ - _Carrie_, quoted selectively.

_"You don't listen, no, you don't listen, you silly little girl."_ - Cake Bake Betty lyric

Every building in the Dark City was empty and every building was different. This one had an old sign over it's doors -- _Live to Learn and Le_, carved, shallowly now, in old gray stone. The end of the sentence was rubbed out by the constant rain, but Roxas didn't mind. The words were trite to begin with.

_Riku_ was hiding inside this building, and Roxas could tell, because there were some silver strands caught in the doorway and there was some Darkness that didn't belong in Nothingness, eating it's way across the rotting wood doors. Power left behind in some hasty retrat...

Roxas smiled, and kicked the doors in.

It was a library. The books smelled like mildew and mold, but they sat still on their shelves, waiting for the dead schoolboys and girls to pick them up and study them. Roxas wanted to tell them that they could stop waiting, that they could rot and die and lose their words, because he couldn't read and didn't want to, anyway.

He was about to, when a gated staircase caught his eye. Just a black gate over a little entrance, but when he pushed against it, it opened. Like it had been _left_ unlocked...

It was a sorry way to fend against your enemy, but then, Roxas wondered who else Riku had to talk to besides him, and thought he understood.

Upstairs was drafty and damp. There was an old loft, and there was brickwall behind the broken glass windows. There was a balcony that overlooked the library. And there was a _smoke door_, and beyond it was another staircase.

Roxas went down it, of course. There was an alcove under it, folding tables and a hole in the floor...and a tiny doorway in the wall, it's door ripped off and propped up against the tables.

He distinctly heard someone humming.

"--Who's _there?_" The familiar voice demanded, and Roxas giggled, delighted with himself as he pushed over the tables and crawled through the little space.

"Found you, Riku. Did you think you could hide?"

Tiles that glistened pretty in the moonlight, and there was a black ceiling. Roxas could see the dim outline of a filthy toilet, and the door, also ripped off, stood under the slit window. The words -- _Helter skelter... I will won't YOU?"_ -- were scrawled across it carelessly.

Riku was sitting on the edge of the tile floor, almost a part of the black black walls. "I wouldn't hide from _you_, Roxas." he said, quietly. Roxas wondered if there was maybe the faintest trace of irony there...

"Yeah?" Roxas sat opposite him. "You keep moving, all around this city. I thought you _liked_ me. I thought we were friends." He pretended to pout and was pleased to see Riku scowl.

"We're not, _friends_." he said, tersely.

"Then what are we?" Always Roxas asked. But there never was an answer...he smiled and wondered if maybe Riku _loved_ him. That's how the boy acted, anyway...

"Give me your hand." Riku said, ignoring the question entirely. Roxas did so, but cringed as Riku worked the glove off.

"I don't like this." he said. "I don't _like_ this."

"You did before." Riku put two fingers in his mouth, sucking on them slowly. It had felt wet and dirty and shameful before and it still did, but it was also coupled with the strange sick-feeling of his soul trying to stir and his body trying to react, and Roxas liked the non-feeling as much as he could like anything. He even gasped when his hand was released, his body frustrated and his fingers spit-slick.

"But I still wish you wouldn't." He wasn't very forceful about it, though, and Riku just laughed.

"It's not so bad to touch. You _say_ it's dirty, but..." The blindfolded boy said, "Just because your castle is so antiseptic and empty doesn't mean that it's clean, you know."

Right. The Castle That Never Was discouraged sex and discouraged bare skin and discouraged passion. But even if Roxas could have put the bizarre feeling of having never been hugged, or even touched by another's bare skin, and then having another start out doing filthy sex things to him into words, Riku would not have understood.

The closest Roxas could get was to say, challengingly, defensively, "You wouldn't know. You've never been vulnerable..."

But maybe that was enough. Riku's mouth opened in surprise, but then he smiled, for maybe the first time Roxas remembered..."Not to you."

"Yeah, so..?"

"What do you want?"

Roxas was taken aback. But he thought he knew. "Your eyes. I want to see your _eyes_..."

Riku lowered his head, just enough to show the black tie that showed through his hair. Roxas hesitated for a moment...but then he took hold of the knot and pulled it out. The blindfold came away in his hands.

He wondered if Riku's eyes were decaying and blind. Or if they were idiot and uncontrolled and ugly or...

They were a cold aqua blue, almost silver in the white light. They were wide and clear and honest and _good_. "There.." Riku said, though his voice was just a whisper. "Is this the same thing?"

He didn't know. But when Riku kissed him, tentatively, he allowed it, and he tried his very best to enjoy it.

Then Riku pulled away, and indicated the toilet that sat disused in the corner. "Sit there," he said, "I'll show you something."

Roxas complied, and once he was seated, Riku began working his pants down. Never, ever, had Roxas allowed another to see him undressed; he didn't even like to look at his own body. Nakedness was bad and feeling was unnatural...

Riku reached up, and slid his fingers into Roxas's mouth, and they tasted like dirt. Roxas licked them slowly, though, painfully aware of how his body was stirring. It was exciting and dreadful, giving Riku this power over him...exciting and embarrassing and then there was no choice but to admit that he _liked_ the feelings that Riku was giving him.

When Riku judged his fingers to be wet enough, he withdrew then from Roxas's mouth and reached around to slide one digit, slowly and deliberately, into Roxas's ass. He hissed, and shifted uncomfortably, but then Riku dipped his head and began sucking on the Nobody's half-erection, and Roxas moaned involuntarily. The soft heat around his dick distracted him from the two fingers that were pushed inside him to join the third, and he whimpered as he became harder, as his body started building up to -- building up, to _what?_

He caught hold of Riku's hair, and it was damp and rough against his ungloved hand. He pulled on it harder as he got closer and as the fingers thrust ever farther -- and then something broke or exploded inside of him, and he came, gasping and panting as he did.

Riku pulled out his fingers and wiped away the white cum that was dribbling down his face. "I told you." he said, smirking. "See? It's not bad at all..."

"But that's not how it's really done, is it?" Roxas asked. "_You_ didn't get a chance to..._you_ know..." he trailed off, awkwardly.

"Next time." Riku said, shrugging as he pulled himself up.

"That's right." Roxas said, comprehension dawning. He grinned, and giggled cheerfully -- "It's not like you can leave now."

--

But later, much later, he wondered if Riku had ever affirmed that statement. Still, it was irrefutable, and almost comedic, when Riku said something to the negative. "What do you mean, you're _leaving?_" Roxas was laughing as he repeated Riku's words. "You can't leave here!"

Riku had been living in a small, wrecked apartment, nowadays. Roxas had come to play with him for maybe the millionth time -- teasing him for not having any Light inside, letting himself be kissed and whispered to and reveling in the way Riku's eyes were brighter when they fell upon Roxas's -- and now the sheets were disarrayed and dirty. But Riku had gotten up, and as soon as he was dressed, he ended the silence abruptly by saying, "I'm leaving now."

And Roxas didn't understand.

"You're not." he said, again, pulling his own coat on -- though as he'd become almost accustomed to the feeling of his hands being bare, he neglected his gloves. "Where would you go without me?"

Riku shrugged one shoulder, but he lifted something from the crumbling bedside table -- his blindfold. He drew it over his eyes and Roxas didn't _understand!_

"I love you." he said, but he had already opened a door to the Darkness.

"I _know_ you do. That's why you _can't_ leave." Roxas said, but he was worried, suddenly, and he remembered, or thought he remembered, Riku being less attentive to his every word, Riku being more and more withdrawn, Riku thinking of someone that wasn't Roxas, lately.

"I can." Riku's sadness was _hollow_, oh. "Sora needs me, Roxas. I won't bring you to him, but--"

They'd talked about Sora. He was a friend of Riku's, but he was asleep, and dying. Besides, Riku had said many times that Roxas was much more understanding of him, and that he'd never want to touch Sora the way he touched Roxas, anyway.

Roxas sneered. His Keyblades snapped into being and he approached Riku slowly, his eyes narrowing. "_Why_ does he need you?"

"I can't tell you -- you wouldn't like to know. But believe me, you don't need me, Roxas."

"Neither does he!" He swung a blade at Riku. The boy dodged it easily, but Roxas had been aiming for the portal, anyway. It closed as Oathkeeper cut through it. "But I _want_ you." he smiled at Riku, because the boy was standing silent now, and his mouth was turned down worriedly. "He doesn't."

"That..that doesn't matter." Riku was _lying_. "He still needs me."

Roxas was trying to understand, he really was. He had a best friend, too, and he guessed if Axel needed him for something, he'd do it. But if Axel wasn't around..._of course._ Roxas smiled widely, still holding his blades laxly. "I know how to take care of it!" he said, brightly. "I'll kill him. And then he won't need you anymore!"

Unexpectedly, Riku was _not_ pleased to be rid of this obligation to Sora. He was angry. "You know who Sora is." he said, slowly, and his own Keyblade slowly materialized in his hand. It hadn't been turned on Roxas for such a long, long time..."He's your heart! How could you even think to kill him?!"

Roxas froze. "What do you mean..." he whispered. "My heart?"

"You're the same as he is." Riku said, miserably. "_His_ Nobody."

"No, I'm not. That's impossible; my heart is lost, and I don't _want_ to find it."

"That's why I won't make you." Riku was absolutely being nonsensical. Hearts died when they were lost, but Sora was asleep. Riku was clearly just _lying_ -- bullshitting a nasty story to get away from Roxas.

"I let you _touch_ me." Roxas hissed, attacking for real this time. "You're as good as mine and I'm to be yours. Isn't that how it works!"

"_Oh..._" Roxas couldn't tell what Riku meant. It was that damned blindfold! "_No_, Roxas, not _always._ I shouldn't have--"

"But you did--" Roxas bit out. He was stronger and he had Riku on the defensive. The boy was forced into the narrow hallway, with no time to create another portal. "So it's too late. I _love_ you now. And you can't leave me."

Their sword clashed, and locked, against each other. But Roxas couldn't tell if Riku was looking at him or not. "You don't love..." Riku muttered. "I'm sorry, I am, but you -- can't -- !!"

Roxas had thrown his weapons away and gotten under Riku's guard. He gave the boy one furious kiss, and his hands went up to Riku's chest, and then he pushed out.

It gave him an angry satisfaction to watch Riku falling down the stairs, landing sprawled on the next landing like a broken doll. The moonlight from the broken window above him illuminated his face, which was oddly slack and dull.

_He deserved it!_

Roxas suddenly thought he understood why _betrayal_ was what the Organization most feared. It _hurt_ to be betrayed -- and for the first time, the Nobody wondered if maybe he'd betrayed the Castle by spending so much time out of it, spending so much time on a human being who was already tired of him.

He had. He'd make it up, though. Just as soon as he dealt with Riku --

His Keyblades disintegrated as he ran down the stairs. "You really were going to leave me.." Roxas muttered. Riku had landed in a half-upright position, his head and back resting against the wall, Roxas though. "I'm going to hurt you for it. I don't know if we can be the same again...lying about my heart like that when you know I don't have one."

Riku didn't answer and Roxas smirked, pleased that the boy was at least listening. "But I know you won't do it again." He sat down before the boy so he could place a hand on Riku's heart, wondering if the organ would be pattering faster now, the way it did when they had sex, or slower, with guilt. "You know your heart is enough for...us both..."

his voice trailed off as the sick realization came over him -- Riku's heart wasn't beating at _all_.

"Riku?" he asked, smiling a little. "Riku, that's funny." he tried to giggle obligingly, but it was hard. "That's funny, but stop now!"

He took the boy's shoulders, intending to shake him, but they were too heavy, and when he pulled away...Riku slumped forward. He'd been held up by the large, square pane of glass that had fallen from the window directly above, but now that he'd shifted, it protruded at a weird angle from where it was embedded grotesquely in his skull and spine.

Roxas remembered very well how he'd come up one night, but had almost been cut by the scattered window glass. He'd scowled and propped the biggest piece up so it was out of his way...

"Oh." he said, realization sweeping over him. "You must have landed on this, huh?"

Riku didn't answer, but he wasn't dead. He _couldn't_ be. "I'll get it out of you." Roxas cooed. "You'll be just fine..."

He seized the pane with his bare hands, but was careful not to grip the bare, jagged edges directly as he tugged the glass out.

With the glass came bits of hair and bone and brain that Roxas hadn't anticipated. But more then that was the liquid that gushed forth from Riku's back and head. It was pooling around Roxas's legs and it splattered on Roxas's face but most of all, it got on his hands, his hands he'd left _bare_.

Roxas had never liked the feeling of Riku's cum when it dribbled down his legs or got too much in his mouth. But that was nothing compared to the feeling of the red liquid winding it's way down his wrists and across his forearms.

He felt sick, and then he _was_, vomiting thin, white bile over Riku's corpse and his own hands.

He didn't mean to leave the boy like that, but he couldn't _stay_ like that.

--

He went to his best friend's room. It was the only place that made sense and Axel was the only one who would _care_ that the horrific, secret stuff that was _supposed_ to be hidden in Riku was now all over _him._

He held out his hands, and heavy drops fell from them to splash across the floor. "Axel..." he moaned, "What _is_ this? It's gotten everywhere, oh..."

Yes, that was right. Axel smiled and he _knew._ "Oh, you _burn_ me, Roxas, you _do_. It's blood and you've gone and gotten it all over yourself."

"I didn't mean to." Roxas said. He took a tentative step towards Axel. "He _hated_ me. He was going to leave. Oh, I didn't know..."

"I told you not to let him touch you." Axel was all gentle reproving smiles as he motioned for Roxas to come closer. "And look, he's gotten you dirty."

Axel had told him, a long time ago, not to mess with Riku. That the boy was dangerous and Dark -- but he'd insisted, foolishly, that Axel was wrong, that Riku loved him, that Riku was on his side, and that it wasn't so bad to be touched, anyway. But now he thought that Axel had been right all along.

He felt sorry, because he'd gone and made such a mess, of Riku and of himself. Mostly of himself. Riku couldn't _feel_ the stuff creeping along his arms, tracking it's sticky hot way into the crooks of the elbows and the backs of the knees. "Is there a way to get it off?" Roxas asked, refusing to look at his gore-streaked hands. "...and does it hurt?" he added, belatedly.

"Hurt, how do you mean?"

"I feel like my skin should be ripped off." he explained. "Or soaked. The stains won't come out easily. Look!" He shrugged his coat off, and his shirt followed. His forearms were streaked with Riku's -- what was it? -- "Blood." Axel said, helpfully -- blood, and it had splattered over his jaw and neck and it was running down his chest and back. "And there's more. It's disgusting and it isn't _mine_..." His voice cracked, despairingly, but his tear ducts were shriveled over and dry and useless.

But Axel knew. Roxas was lucky, so _lucky_ to have a best friend..."It will hurt." the older Nobody took off his gloves, which was very strange..."There are two ways to get clean. Clean it with your own blood, then wash it _all_ away with water, or with _fire_. I can only give you one. And Demyx doesn't know how to cleanse without drowning."

"Anything." Roxas said, without hesitating. "It's sticking and it's _running_..."

Axel caught hold of Roxas's hands, but his own hands remained bone-white. It wouldn't stain Axel, of course. _He_ hadn't ever done anything to deserve the filth. _He_ was pure. He sat down on his thin white bed and dragged Roxas onto his lap.

Roxas wasn't surprised to see a knife in Axel's hand. "Don't make it hurt _too_ much." he moaned.

The knife cut deep into his palm and he screamed. It dug in too deep, and it cut right through some vein -- he tried to close his fingers over his other hand, but Axel pried them apart and cut that one, too. Blood gushed from Roxas's palms and it was icy and fetid with stagnation.

"Why -- why do _I_ have it -- ?" he gasped. Axel's hands caught his slit fists, the cuts ill-protected by the unhindered cage of his clenched fingers.

"We all do." Axel hissed. One leg wrapped about Roxas's waist, even though the child hadn't even tried to run. "It just doesn't move in us, cuz we don't have hearts." He pressed the fists over Roxas's eyes. "Open your hands," he commanded. "You've got to let your blood run over _his_."

Roxas did so. His hands shook and they _hurt_, but -- the blood that ran from his palms flowed evenly, and cold. It covered the eyes that had seen too much and the mouth that had been violated so many times. It ran, freezing, over his neck and torso -- his dark blood covered up all the spider-tracks of Riku's blood and washed them away.

When Axel released his hands, Roxas was sobbing tearlessly. Not for the pain -- that had dulled to a throbbing ache -- but for the joy that came from the knowledge that his blood was pure as his best friend's ever was. It was pure and cold and uniform and it was alright to have it in the bleach-white castle.

"But there's more.." he said, worriedly. "On my feet."

Axel understood. "We'll clean that off the same way."

He gestured for Roxas to stand up. The boy did, and Axel took the sheet from the bed. Riku's blood, no matter what the effect they had on Roxas, meant nothing to Axel, so it did not stain his hands -- but Roxas's blood was the most important, the only thing that Axel had to protect, and it was all over the sheet, leaving wet and red blossoms were it spread.

"I can't _see_ where it is." Axel reminded Roxas, as the boy sat down on the second sheet. Roxas understood, but he held up his hands pitifully.

Axel nodded and knelt before his friend. He pulled off Roxas's boots, then started, unhurriedly, on the pants. The boy squirmed, uncomfortable, and he flinched where ever Axel's bare hands touched his exposed skin. He deliberately brushed his hand against Roxas's groin, and smiled when Roxas whimpered. "He won't do that to you anymore though, will he?" he asked. "You wouldn't let him if he could."

Roxas nodded. "Of course not. After he got his cum and _blood_ all on me."

"_Don't_ remember it." Axel advised, as he pushed the blond down to lay on the bed, and then bound the bloody wrists to the headboard with the sheet he'd removed.

"Why..?"

Axel shoved the end of the sheet into Roxas's mouth. "The next cuts hurt more. But I don't want you running away -- it's good for you, but if you knew what was good for you, this wouldn't have happened, right?"

Right. And the sheet..."That's so you don't bite your tongue."

Roxas's shins had gotten bloody, too, probably from kneeling in the pool around Riku. Axel didn't know. But he was revolted, by how ghastly the blood smelled and by how it _clung_ to Roxas.

He had to get rid of it quick. Or it would stain through Roxas and the child would never, ever be able to forget Riku. They'd be conjoined, forever, and Axel didn't _want_ that.

He cut identical gashes below the knees. The younger Nobody's blood flowed down them, obligingly, and even though Roxas was trying to scream, was gagging on the goddamned sheet as he kicked his legs, helplessly trying to staunch the bleeding, he was becoming clean again.

Axel caught onto Roxas's ankles and held them down against the bed. He was a good friend because he could be patient as Roxas took his time healing. He would be patient and wash Riku so thoroughly from Roxas, it would be as though the darkling had never existed.

Finally, Roxas stopped struggling. He lay quite still, and when Axel pulled the sheet from his mouth, it was very nearly bitten through. "But not bloody..." Roxas said, proudly, if not faintly. "I didn't bite my tongue. I can deal with this."

"Of course you can." Axel said. "You brought it upon yourself, didn't you?"

"Yes. But I'm very nearly clean. And you forgive me, don't you, Axel?"

The redhead was not so cruel as to withhold forgiveness, and he told Roxas this reassuringly.

He reached into his coat pocket, though, and drew out a bottle of kelly green potion. "Drink this. You've got to close the cuts, now, or something'll get in and infect you..."

Roxas drank it obediently. It was bitter, but it washed away the burning yellow taste the bile had left in his throat. The gashes knitted themselves shut and, when they were perfectly healed, he indicated the blood that was all over his body now, clotting and streaking him bright-bright scarlet. "Now what?" he asked, eagerly.

"It all gets burned off. You just relax and let me take care of it, huh?" He smiled and put the sheet back in. Roxas gave him a questioning, almost irritable look, but he shook his head. "It would be perfectly understandable if you bit your tongue right off. But I really don't want that."

The fire came naturally from his fingertips, and it danced excitedly along his hand. Just a little, though -- just enough heat to burn through blood and the single polluted layer of skin.

His hand was open when he placed it on Roxas's chest, and he drew it all the way across in one clean motion.

Roxas seemed to want to say something, but Axel thought he knew -- _This doesn't hurt at all!_

"Give it time, give it tiiime..." Axel singsonged. "Burns don't hurt till a little bit after." The blood vanished as his hand crossed it, and the skin began to swell up, changing Roxas's skin to fat yellow boils that were filling with pus and water.

As Roxas's body began to realize it had been burned, the boy began to protest it. He kicked and tried to rip his hands away from the headboard, but Axel forced himself to keep going slow. It wouldn't do to miss a spot.

After his chest, Axel burned the blood off Roxas's hips and legs, and he did not differentiate between those and more sensitive spots. After all, the boy's cock was the dirtiest part, the part that Riku had taken and abused, knowing full well that he would be leaving Roxas, in time...

Roxas didn't seem to appreciate how Axel was being so conscientious. His screams were muffled and pained and he tried his hardest to rip away -- but Axel was stronger, and heavier, and he held him down easily. Besides, he was determined to see it through...

When Axel came back up, running his hands underneath Roxas, cleaning his ankles and ass and spine, though, he wasn't struggling so hard, and there was a dull, tired look in his eyes. And oddly...there were tears on his face. "You shouldn't be able to cry..." Axel said, displeased, but Roxas seemed incapable of answering.

Maybe that was better, Axel mused, because Roxas wouldn't remember the rest of his surgery. And now he could just take his time. He touched Roxas's neck gently, then, just for the hell of it -- knowing it was going to be anesthetized, anyway -- he pressed his lips to Roxas's, playfully, remembering back to a Somebody life where there were colors other then white, and it was okay to be intimate sometimes.

Roxas's hands took the longest time. He had to burn them more then he would have liked, because the blood on them was thicker and starting to cake over. Each finger had to be done separately. Arms, then, and --

He'd saved the face for last. His best friend would wake up with a perfectly new skin, and no recollections of what it was like to feel. And then they'd stay forever as Nobodies, never hurting or aging or loving, and they'd always be best friends. Riku and Sora and the old man and the worlds...would _never_ come between him and Roxas's perfect, brand-new baby face. Never!

The face was covered in blisters when Axel thought to seal over the tear glands. He had to hold open the eyes, and run his pinky finger behind each of the swollen eyelids _so_ delicately. But he felt the glands eventually, and burned them with a certain kind of specialized glee.

He might have been a surgeon; Roxas's dark blue eyes hadn't burned at all.

--

Then he set about slitting the blisters and ripping off the dead skin. It would take quite a while...

--

When Roxas woke up, his skin was new and painfully sensitive. He looked eerie, with his skin tough and pink and scabbing on his hands. But everyone was so pleased, to see he'd come back to them for _good_. And they all assured him that it would get better in time.

He told them that he was sorry, he'd turned his thoughts from their goal...

and they laughed and shook their heads and said it wasn't a problem at all.

There was a point, though, he whispered to Axel, during the surgery, when he thought he'd been crying. Even though the ducts weren't supposed to work without a heart. And more confusing, he wasn't crying from the pain. He was crying for his hope, or his heart, or for some boy's corpse. Why?

Axel said that no such thing had happened, and not to worry about it.

So he tried to forget about it, but sometimes when he closed his eyes, he thought could feel small, water-filled blisters pushing against the eyeballs, felt them growing fat with hot, dirty tears. And he was afraid, because he knew that one day they would break and release the tears down his face, just like the cum, just like the blood...


End file.
